All-American Example of Begging the Question

by philg

One thing that Americans can’t do is use the term “Begging the question” correctly.

How about this real-life example that might stick in American minds…

friend: (pointing to open box on kitchen island) Look at this rifle that I got today. [an IWI Tavor]

me: (to the 11-year-old girl on the other side of the kitchen island, using a knife to sculpt a diorama for an English class) Why does your dad need another gun?

girl: Because he’s my dad.

What do logic- and philosophy-minded readers think? Was the girl begging the question?

16 thoughts on “All-American Example of Begging the Question”

  3. Agreed that Americans can’t use the phrase correctly, but our usage is somewhat more consistent with the current meaning of the constituent words. Should ‘correct’ usage be continued for the sake of pedantry when the phrase no longer makes sense to the society at large?

  5. Classical Latin is most effective against Zombies. Or is hieroglyphics? Possibly Mosaic Hebrew.

  6. It’s very poorly named and few use it correctly. Wikipedia claims

    The term “begging the question”, as it is usually phrased, originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii, which actually translates to “assuming the initial point”.

    Perhaps that explains it.

    There’s always a number of these floating around. “Free reign” anyone?

  8. Okay, so she is not begging the question apparently. Her argument is not a convincing one, at least to me. So what logical fallacy fits?

  9. I would argue that you have indeed cited an example of “begging the question.” The response was, “Because he’s my Dad [and Dad always needs another gun].” If the implied ending had been stated, then all sarcasm would have been lost and the 11 yr. old would have had to resign from daughterhood in disgrace. But looking at the full meaning of her answer, it certainly assumes the truth of the central point of the question.

    I suspect that fewer than 5 in 100 uses of the term mean anything other than “raising the question” and, given the bizarre use of the word “begging,” that’s understandable.

  10. Tom, Never used “free reign,” but once I submitted a brief to a federal judge with the phrase “martial the evidence.” I recognized my mistake about one millisecond after I hit send on the document upload. Fortunately the facts of my position were strong enough to withstand my own argument.

  11. I don’t see a logical fallacy. She’s using your observation as a constitutive definition of ‘her dad’, in essence saying it’s in his fundamental nature to buy guns. Now you might want more detail on why it is his nature do so, but there’s no fallacy.

  12. I am with VV2. It’s highly likely that the girl’s reasoning is entirely rational. Not 100% but close. There’s no fallacy there.

  13. Philg: “Why does your dad need another gun?”

    This question ipresupposes an assumption as being a fact. It’s a “loaded question”.

  15. “Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.

    Shut up he explained.”

    Ring Lardner, The Young Immigrunts (1920), Chapter 10, “N.Y. to Grenitch 500.0”

  16. Also, “The exception that proves the rule.” What the heck does that mean. I use it a lot, but only as a joke.

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